


The Genius Next Door

by lookimadeahat



Series: Canon Complaint Character Studies [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Gotham (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Character Study, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Drug Use, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, My First AO3 Post, My First Fanfic, Original Character(s), Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 06:39:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18823168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookimadeahat/pseuds/lookimadeahat
Summary: Edward Nashton is seventeen years old, trapped in an abusive home, and at the end of his rope.Ed was tired. Again. Time seemed to be getting slower by the day. The same mundane routine and the endless ache of complacency wore him down...It wasn’t that Ed didn’t enjoy routine, quite the contrary; in fact, he found nothing more comforting than making a plan and seeing it through to completion. Ed had never been fond of unpredictable circumstances. Fortunately, his circumstances were always predictable nowadays. Though sometimes he did wish the predictability didn’t prove quite so...painful.*IMPORTANT-Trigger warning for a suicide attempt and references to another character dying from suicide.*





	1. Death's Messengers

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction ever (yay!). A few notes before you begin:  
> 1.) FINAL WARNING-This work contains a depiction of a suicide attempt and contains references to another character (only referenced, not shown or heard from) dying from suicide.  
> 2.) I tagged this as containing graphic depictions of violence to be careful. I do not personally consider the depictions graphic, but I wanted to be safe.  
> 3.) Feedback is welcomed and greatly appreciated.  
> 4.) I apologize if there are any errors in spelling or grammar. I only read through this once after writing, so an error or two may have slipped through, though I don't think there will be many, if any, significant errors in that area.  
> 5.) I hope you enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ed was tired. Again. Time seemed to be getting slower by the day. The same mundane routine and the endless ache of complacency wore him down. Wake up, prepare for the day, go to school, “talk” with his father, work, another “talk” with his father when he got home, then bed. It wasn’t that Ed didn’t enjoy routine, quite the contrary; in fact, he found nothing more comforting than making a plan and seeing it through to completion. Ed had never been fond of unpredictable circumstances. Fortunately, his circumstances were always predictable nowadays. Though sometimes he did wish the predictability didn’t prove quite so...painful.

✥✵✥

 _Crack._

The sound of a glass shattering echoed down the empty halls of the Nashton’s dilapidated townhouse. Infuriated, slurred shouts rang through the frigid air, cutting through the stillness with all the subtlety and grace of a mack truck. 

“You are the biggest mistake I ever made! Idiot. Worthless! You’re lucky I haven’t thrown you out on the street like the trash you are!”

“Dad,” Ed whispered through a choked attempt at holding back the tears threatening to spill from his eyes, “Please. The neighbors. They might hear you. You don’t want them calling the cops or something. We don’t want to make a scene.”

If the neighbors heard anything, they gave no indication of it. The last time anyone had called the cops or reported any disturbance from the Nashton home was when Edward was ten. He’d almost gotten out. He’d almost been free. If only his father hadn’t been such an effective liar. Harold Nashton wasn’t known for his intellect, but his charm was another story. Despite being a raging misogynist, violent alcoholic, and general ass, the man possessed a surprisingly quick wit when it came to lying his way out of trouble. The shouting was a nightly occurrence. The sounds of breaking glass used to be far less common, but now it was a nightly occurrence as well, and still the neighbors never called the police, never came to check if everything was okay.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were talking back, _Edward._ Don’t tell me what I want. You don’t know anything!” Mr. Nashton bellowed. “Do you think your smarter than me? Huh? Is that it? Think I don’t know how to handle stuff myself?” he added with a slurred growl, shoving Ed into the kitchen table. The side of Ed’s head smacked into the corner, and he could immediately feel warm blood gushing from his temple, accompanied by a deafening pounding in his head, a sharp pain in his right ribs, and the beginnings of what would surely be a garish bruise on his knee. He made no move to stand back up, not daring to meet his father’s gaze as he replied, “Of course not. I know-I know I’m stupid. You’ve made that abundantly clear. I just...it wouldn’t be good for either of us if you spent the night in jail.”

The only thing Ed wanted more than a night free from his father’s wrath was a permanent escape from it. He knew he would never have a way out if he didn’t go to university. He knew his father would believe it was Ed’s fault he was sent to jail, even if Ed wasn’t the one who reported his abuse. Harold was already far from convinced that a college education was something Ed needed, or deserved, and Ed had no desire to further jeopardize his only chance of escape.

“Stupid. Childish. Worthless! You couldn’t survive one night on your own?! What kind of a man are you? You love to act like you’re all grown up, don’t you, Edward? But you are too useless to survive on your own for one night!” Harold taunted, before crescendoing into a rage and hurling the remains of his half-shattered beer bottle at Ed. The remains of the bottle cracked apart on Ed’s forearm, and the young man found himself unable to stifle a cry of pain upon its impact. Harold sighed and glared down at his son. “Clean up this mess before you go to work.”

Ed said nothing in response but gave a weak nod as his father exited the room. He crumpled his long body into a ball of trembling limbs and blood stains and cried. After a few minutes he stood up, wiped his tears, and calmly began cleaning up the shattered glass around him.

✥✵✥

Ed jogged up to the battered doors of the Bright Oak Diner. He’d cleaned and bandaged his wounds prior to leaving for work, but had still failed miserably at hiding them, thanks, in no small part, to the large blood stain that seeped through the bandage around his head mere minutes after securing it. He rushed through the front of the grimy restaurant and towards the back room labeled ‘employees only’. As he pushed open the door, he saw Logan wrestling Jon, who did not seem to be a willing participant in the ‘game’, and Randy standing to the side watching, egging Logan on. ‘Why must I be surrounded by imbeciles everywhere I go?’ Ed thought to himself with a roll of his eyes.

“Whoa, Nashton! What happened to your head, dude?” Randy chuckled in lieu of a proper greeting as Ed entered. 

“Why don’t you mind your own business and wait on customers like you were hired to do,” Edward muttered under his breath, far too quiet for the others in the room to hear, as he placed his belongings in one of the lockers against the back wall. He knew he should try to be polite, considering Randy and Logan were both classmates and coworkers, but he loathed the two jocks. For the entirety of his grammar and middle school years, as well as his first two years of secondary school, they had made Ed’s life even more of a living Hell than it already was with his father, but now they ignored him mostly, tolerating his quirks with nothing more than thinly-veiled mockery with their friends or off-handed comments he assumed were meant to insult him, and that was somehow worse. 

“Check it out, Logan. Looks like Nashton got his ass handed to him.”

Ed decided not to give any sort of a response, opting to simply grab a towel and supplies before scurrying from the room to start cleaning tables.

✥✵✥

Ed’s ribs complained _emphatically_ , with a sharp pain and loud pop, as he reached across the table with his dishrag to clean up a ketchup smiley face a young boy had decorated the sparse table with just before leaving. He let out a quiet, but nonetheless audible, groan of pain.

“Ed.”

Ed turned. “Yeah, Jon?”

“When you’re done with that table, take your break. I’m taking mine in couple minutes, I’ll join you,” Jon called from his spot in the kitchen where he stood washing dishes.

Ed forced a tight smile onto his face and gave a curt nod in acknowledgement, before finishing cleaning the table and walking through the empty diner to the employee’s break room. He shuffled past Randy and Logan’s belongings, haphazardly strewn across the floor, and grabbed the book he had just started reading, _The Long and Short Term Effects of Boxing on the Vital Organs and Autonomic Nervous System_ , from his locker before heading out the back door and into the cold autumn air.

“It’s crazy to me how those two assholes leave their crap everywhere. This is a restaurant, not their house,” a soft yet clear voice griped behind him. Ed looked up from where he had sat beneath the streetlight, making note of the page of his book before closing it; he did not want to lose his spot, and tarnishing the book by dog-earing the page was out of the question.

“Why did you want me to take my break now?” Ed inquired. Jon was cordial with him, unlike his other coworkers, but Ed would hardly consider them friends.

“You seemed tired, and I thought you looked like you could use some company,” the gangly man observed as he took a seat in the grass next to Ed, leaning his chin on the jutting bones of his knees, visible even through his jeans. Ed started to move over to give him more room to sit down but immediately regretted it as he was reminded of his injuries via a piercing pain in his ribs and arm. He was unable to suppress the anguished grunt from escaping him as he winced in pain. Jon looked over Ed with searching grey eyes. “So, are you going to tell me what the Hell happened to you?”

Ed looked at the ground. “Nothing.”

“Really? Because you look like crap. There’s still blood coming through your wrap, man. You can’t even see any white left, the whole thing’s just... _red._ It’s been almost three hours since you got here, you need stitches or something.”

“No!” Ed shouted in a panic, gripping Jon’s arm so hard his knuckles turned white. Upon seeing Jon’s startled face, Ed let go of his arm, realizing that it must have seemed like a drastic overreaction. He desperately tried to cover up his mistake. “I’m so sorry! No, I-uh-I just _need_ -I mean I can’t-No,” he sputtered. ‘Calm down, Ed,’ he thought to himself, ‘You’re going to make him suspicious.’ He took a deep breath and tried again. “I’m really sorry about that. I just hate…” he paused, searching for an excuse his thought his coworker would believe, “Hospitals? Yes! Hospitals! All the germs, and the sickness, and it’s too much.”

“Okay…” Jon conceded, though he was clearly unconvinced. “So, how about something to help with the pain at least?” He began to dig through his pockets.

“I think I’m fine. I mean, I doubt standard painkillers would–W-what is that?” Ed’s eyes widened as Jon produced something that looked like a cigarette and offered it to him.

“Do you seriously not know?” Jon asked with a chuckle. “It’ll help with the pain.”

“Isn’t marijuana illegal?” Ed eyed the joint skeptically.

“Oh, so you _do_ know what it is.” Jon smiled, but then, noticing Ed’s apprehension, added, “Look, you can smoke this, or I can take you to the hospital. The choice is yours. But you’re a wreck. You need some kind of help with as much pain as you’re in, and I’m not going to let you stay in pain for no good reason.”

Ed nodded meekly and accepted the joint. He stared at it intently while Jon rummaged through his coat for a lighter. Ed wasn’t entirely sure how one smokes a joint. He supposed it was similar to smoking a cigarette, and he had seen his father do that thousands of times, so, when Jon lit the joint, Ed tried his best to mimic the way his father inhaled his cigarettes. He breathed it in deeply and immediately began coughing.

“That is disgusting!”

Jon laughed uproariously at Ed’s reaction, as he grabbed the joint and took a drag for himself before handing it back to him. “You’ll get used to it. Just give it a minute.”

“How long will it take to work?”

“A couple of minutes.”

✥✵✥

The two sat in silence, passing the joint back and forth as they watched the parking lot for new customers. Their boss wouldn’t care how long they stayed out there as long as they came back in when new customers showed up. The pounding in Ed’s head began to subside after about ten minutes, as did the ache in his ribs, though the stinging in his arm remained stubbornly.

“Why are you trying to help me?” Ed asked, not making eye contact.

“What was I supposed to do? You clearly weren’t making any effort to take care of yourself beyond wrapping your injuries.”

“But we aren’t friends.”

“So?” Jon looked at him incredulously before his expression softened, “Look, Ed, you’re a nice kid–”

“I’m not _that_ much younger than you,” Ed grumbled.

“Fine. You’re a nice person. Is that better?” He waited until seeing Ed nod before continuing, “You’re a little weird, sure, but you seem like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. We don’t have to be friends for me to give a crap about your well-being. Besides, we could become friends. Tell me about yourself.”

Ed’s eyes lit up momentarily, before taking on a more guarded shine. No one ever asked him about himself. No one ever wanted to know. No one ever cared. He knew he should be careful, but it felt so nice to have someone _want_ to hear about him. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything. I know almost nothing about you.”

“That’s not true. We’ve been working together for almost two years.”

“Yeah, and you almost never talk. Okay. You want to know what I know about you?” Ed nodded. “Your name is Ed Nashton, but I’m not positive about what ‘Ed’ is short for, you work here, you are a senior at Waterbury High School, you read a lot, and I _think_ you are seventeen. I’m not sure about the last point, though. I’m just going by the average age for a senior. That is everything I know about you after working with you for two years.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize I was so...difficult to get to know. Alright. Alright, I am seventeen, you were correct. Ed is short for Edward. I like reading and science and riddles. I _love_ riddles!” Ed said with a delighted giggle, unsure whether it was the attention or the cannabis that was making him feel so light and happy.

“Really? That’s...interesting. Go on, tell me a riddle.”

“Ooh! Okay! Everyone wants me, and if you find me you’re lucky. I cost you nothing but am more valuable than anything. I am impossible for one alone to possess, but two or more can share me, nonetheless. What am I?”

“I don’t–”

“Friendship!” Ed blurted out, giddy.

“Cool,” came Jon’s unenthusiastic reply, not that Ed noticed his lack of conviction. Sensing Ed’s obliviousness, Jon interjected to steer the conversation elsewhere. “So, where do you want to go to college? Or are you going to college?”

“I can’t really afford it. I’m waiting to find out about the scholarships I’ve applied for, so that will help me determine which schools I can really consider. I’ve received acceptance letters from Central City University, Shuster College, and the Wayne School of Science and Medicine at Gotham University, so I’m waiting for the information on the financial packages I qualify for, based on a combination of necessity and academic aptitude. I don’t know about the other schools I’ve applied to yet,” he blabbered, “And on top of that, I don’t know if my dad will let me–”

“You’ll be eighteen by the time you go to college, though, correct?”

“Yeah?”

“Then you _do know_ that your dad doesn’t really have a say in whether or not you can go...Right?” 

“Oh,” Ed breathed, anxiously tapping his foot before opting to indulge in another drag from the joint to calm his nerves. “Of course. Yeah. I just-um-What I meant was that-that my dad, he won’t pay for my college if I don’t…”

“If you don’t what?” Jon pressed.

Ed was tried to force down the growing ball of panic in his stomach, its insidious and pervasive burning threatening to divulge all of Ed’s darkest secrets as it crept up into his throat. He swallowed hard. Logically, Ed understood that his father had no legal power over him once he turned eighteen, but he was so afraid. He was afraid of what would happen if he defied his father. If he managed to sneak out and escape in the dark of night, run far away to Gotham or Central City or God knows where, his father would just track him down and drag him back to Waterbury. If he openly disobeyed his father’s wishes, well, Ed had a feeling that he’d be exiting the Nashton residence in a bodybag the next day.

“Ed? Is something wrong? You’re kind of freaking me out.”

His silence had gone on too long. He had to think of something to cover his tracks. If Ed answered his question, he knew he’d end up sharing something he’d never be able to take back, the consequences of which he was petrified of facing.  
“Did you know that my mom was German!” Ed exclaimed, more statement than question.

“ _What?_ ” Jon almost dropped the still-lit joint in his bewilderment at the abrupt change in topics.

“My mom was-uh-she was born in Germany. Came here when she was twelve.”

“That’s nice?” Jon replied, still baffled by the complete one-eighty in topic. “Do you speak German?”

“Oh, no, not really. I picked up some things here and there, but nothing major. My mom never really spoke German around the house. She said we should always be moving forward, not dwelling on past homes or past lives. She was smart like that. But I sometimes wonder if–”

“Was?”

“What?”

“Was. You said ‘She _was_ smart like that.’ Is she not smart anymore?” he joked.

Ed gave an uncomfortable, unconvincing laugh along with him. “Hah, no, that’s not what I–Well, I suppose that is accurate. What I meant was-um-well...She’s dead.”

Jon’s face fell as he stopped laughing instantly. “Oh my God. I am _so_ sorry. I didn’t know!”

“It’s fine. You’re fine. It happened a long time ago.”

The two sat in silence for a few moments before Jon noticed Edward mumbling under his breath.

“ _Die Boten des Todes_ …’Habe ich dir nicht einen Boten über den andern geschickt?’”

“Is that German?”

“Yeah...My mom never spoke German, unless she was telling me a bedtime story. I haven’t thought about it in a long time,” Ed reminisced with a sad smile. “There was this one fable, ‘Die Boten des Todes’–’Death’s Messengers’–that she always read to me. I heard it so often I could recite it from memory.”

“‘Death’s Messengers’? That doesn’t seem like the best bedtime story to keep nightmares away.”

“It never scared me. It’s not as dark as you might think. The story is that a young man saved Death, and Death wanted to thank him. Death could not spare anyone, so he promised the man that he would send his messengers to warn the man before he died, so the man would know beforehand that his time was dwindling. When Death came to collect the man, he accused Death of breaking his promise. ’Habe ich dir nicht einen Boten über den andern geschickt?’–’Have I not sent you one messenger after another?’ Fever, gout, dizziness, sleep. Death had sent him many messengers, but the man had not seen them for what they were. ‘Der Mensch wußte nichts zu erwiedern, ergab sich in sein Geschick und gieng mit dem Tode fort.’–’The man did not know how to answer, so he surrendered his fate and went away with Death.’ See, not so scary,” Ed assured him with a smile.

“I guess. It seems like a bit of a bummer, though...I thought you couldn’t speak German?”

“You know what’s funny? I know what all of those words mean together, but if you asked me what each meant individually, I would have no clue what all but three or four of them meant.” They both chuckled good-naturedly. “My mother said the story was a valuable lesson: Just because the outcome of a promise is different than you expected, it doesn’t mean the promise was broken, so you should uphold your end of it diligently...I always got something else from it, but I guess that’s just how perception works. The same work can mean different things to different people.”

“What did it mean to you?” Jon seemed genuinely interested, leaning towards Edward as though he were a magnet that could draw the answer out of him through proximity alone.

“Things might not always go the way you expect, so pay attention and, if you don’t like the direction things are headed, find a loophole, so you don’t get stuck with the short of the stick” Ed said with a grin. “That’s probably not what it was intended to mean, but I always liked that moral better.”

 

✥✵✥


	2. Hold in Your Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward Nashton is seventeen years old, trapped in an abusive home, and at the end of his rope.
> 
>  
> 
> Ed was tired. Again. Time seemed to be getting slower by the day. The same mundane routine and the endless ache of complacency wore him down...It wasn’t that Ed didn’t enjoy routine, quite the contrary; in fact, he found nothing more comforting than making a plan and seeing it through to completion. Ed had never been fond of unpredictable circumstances. Fortunately, his circumstances were always predictable nowadays. Though sometimes he did wish the predictability didn’t prove quite so...painful.
> 
>  
> 
> *IMPORTANT-Trigger warning for a suicide attempt and references to another character dying from suicide.*

✥✵✥

Edward’s work had ended early that night; no one had come in for two hours by nine o’clock, so the manager had let everyone go home early. He started to walk home, through the pitch black and silence, but decided to wander the streets aimlessly instead. His father wouldn’t be expecting him until ten-thirty, and he relished the idea of having a another hour away from his home. 

The effects of the joint had largely worn off, but the world still felt a little slower than usual, calmer. Peaceful. He walked to the local lake, staring out over its tranquil waters. It was so much more placid than his chaotic life. ‘Not chaotic. Turbulent.’ he thought. Sure, his life was a mess. An agonizing, monotonous melancholy. An endless cycle of predictable chaos...but chaos wasn’t predictable. No, his life was turbulent: unquestionably unstable, but predictable nevertheless. 

He flung a large pebble into the lake’s still waters, furiously, suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to disrupt the serene bond of the waves and make them as fractured as his hellish existence. Ed fell to his knees, not bothering to suppress the tears that began to cascade from his eyes. They became one with the lake as they trickled down, joining the cyclical lapping of the waves on the shore. Edward hugged his knees to his chest as he wept, a frightened child waiting for the comforting embrace of a parent that would never come. He was not a young man preparing to live a life of his own accord, freedom’s embrace waiting patiently around the corner to carry him away from what he was and deliver him to what he would become. He was a trembling leaf, dry and chipped, more fragile than the hummingbird who perched upon him, shattering his brittle surface apart into an irreparable congregation of dirt and debris. The suffocating silence surrounded him, threatening to drown him in its eerie calmness. Even the repetitive swish of gentle waves against the lake’s shore had faded into the background until it seemed to have disappeared altogether.

✥✵✥

Ed stumbled up the steps to the front door. Eleven twenty-two. He froze as he reached for the knob. ‘Oh, God, what is he going to do to me? He’s going to kill me, isn’t he? Maybe he fell asleep. He could be sleeping? He could be drunk enough that he’s blacked out...’ Ed took as deep of a breath as he could manage in his anxiety-ridden state and turned the doorknob as quietly as he could. He had almost managed to close the door in silence, but, just as it was an inch from closing, the door let out a cacophonous creak. His shoulders tensed, his neck muscles constricted until the air was trapped in his throat with nowhere to go, and his hands started quaking as he shut his eyes tight and waited for the inevitable.

“Where the _Hell_ have you been you little piece of sh–” Ed opened his eyes hesitantly to see why his father had stopped the impending verbal tirade.  
“Are you _high?_ ” Harold sneered.

Ed couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t _think._

“My God. You _are_ high. You’re-How the- _Why_ the-” Harold sputtered, his alcoholic stench permeating the room with every exhale as he seethed.

“How-How can you tell?” Ed whispered, knowing it would confirm his father’s suspicions, but too afraid to attempt to deny them at this point.

“You stink of it, _Eddie,_ ” he spat out his son’s name as though it were the most foul curse known to man, “My son, a pothead. _God!_ And I thought you were a disappointment before!”

The man began to pace back and forth, muttering savagely under his breath. Ed began to slowly back away from his father. He normally would have been curled up on the floor, receiving an endless barrage of kicks by now. He knew he should be grateful he wasn’t being beaten half to death, but he couldn’t shake the growing unease inside him. This was wrong. This was going to be worse than it usually was. He didn’t know how he knew, but he could just _feel_ it. If he could just take a few more steps back he would be at the doorknob. All he needed to do was pull it open and run away, as fast as he could. Still facing his father’s fuming figure, he subtly reached his hand out behind him until he felt it bump into cool metal. He grasped the sphere and began to turn it slowly, ever so quietly until–

“What are you doing?” Harold stopped in his tracks, glaring at Edward.

“I-um-I was…” Ed stammered.

“You are _not_ going _anywhere,_ ” he growled.

Ed turned around in a rush, pulling open the door, but not before his father caught him. Harold yanked Ed back into the house, nearly dislocating the frightened boy’s arm in the process. He slammed the door shut and pressed Ed up against it, holding his son against it via a death-grip on his neck with one hand and bracing his other forearm against the young man’s chest forcefully.

“I don’t know what I could have possibly done to deserve the _torture_ of having you as a child! Who on God’s green earth was I so terrible to that I deserve _this?!_ ” Harold yelled as he tightened his grip around Ed’s neck. 

Ed was beginning to feel dizzy; his father’s grip was bruising, both on his neck and across his chest. He felt so tired. Black dots began to fill his eyes, and the darkness called out to him with its strangely pleasant stillness, calm and tranquil. His knees began to give way beneath him as the inky blackness came closer and closer to consuming his vision entirely. He barely registered his father’s grip loosening as he tumbled to the ground. An all-consuming feeling of euphoria spread throughout Ed’s body as he lie in a heap on the floor, slipping closer and closer to the edge. Then, all at once, the pressure around his neck was gone, and he heaved in several desperate, gasping breaths as the euphoria dissipated and the petrifying reality set back in. Ed had never experienced fear as strongly as he did in that moment, realizing he had just been on the brink of death by his father’s hand.

“You really are your mother’s son.” A swift kick to Ed’s liver punctuated Harold’s observation.

“ _AH!_ ” Ed yelped. Harold’s strong but shaky hands clasped around Ed’s neck again, dragging him into a sitting position with his back against the door and squeezing, though not quite hard enough to cut off Ed’s air supply as they had done a moment prior. “Your mother was a good-for-nothing, drug addicted–”

“Stop, please, please don’t talk about Mom,” Ed croaked as tears began to stream down his face.

“–whore. You are just like her–”

“No, no–”

“Stupid. Sick. _Weak._ ” Harold began to press harder on Ed’s windpipe as his anger began to boil over.

“Please, _don’t._ Please, Dad. _Please._ ”

“It’s your fault she killed herself!” Ed’s whole body began to shake as he struggled desperately to breathe, while Harold pressed harder, squeezed tighter still.

“D-Da-h…” Ed’s words died before they could leave his mouth. Black dots began to swim into his vision again, mingling with white stars.

“She wanted better for you, Ed! She fooled herself into thinking you were good enough to get it!” Harold couldn’t see beyond the anger, the pain, the disappointment. He wasn’t killing his son...at least, he didn’t know he was. Even as Ed limbs began to convulse from the sheer effort of attempting to suck in a fraction of a breath, Harold did not see what he was doing. “If she saw you now– _a drugged up disappointment_ –she would kill herself all over again!”

Even through the growing fog, the beckoning blackness, Ed heard his father’s words, and they sparked a white hot rage in him that he had never felt before. He used all the strength he had left, all the adrenaline now coursing through his body from the mix of fury and fear, and _shoved_ his father off of him. Harold fell to the ground, sliding several feet away from Ed from the force of the impact. He stared up at his son in pure shock.

✥✵✥

And Ed stopped mid-punch. He was standing, leaning over his father, in the midst of beating his abuser senseless. He looked down at Harold’s bloody nose, the blooming flower of a black-eye. This made no sense.

“When did I move?” 

“Wh-hh-what?” Harold coughed.

“I was sitting...over there...Now I’m here.” The only emotion that could be detected in Ed’s hoarse voice was a faint trace of confusion.

“I-huhh-You–” Harold heaved and coughed up a small amount of blood. Ed stared at his father, horror slowly washing over him as he realized he had been the one to inflict Harold’s injuries. He turned around and rushed out the door, fleeing his house, running full speed to nowhere.

✥✵✥

His legs burned with the effort, but his lungs burned even more. Ed didn’t know how long he’d been running, but he didn’t recognize the part of the city he was running through anymore. The houses were looking more and more suburban as he raced past them, a far cry from the crowded apartments and townhouses near his street, but he was too frightened to slow down.

He didn’t stop until he reached woods. As he looked around, trying to discern where he was, a shadow moved out of the corner of his eye. Ed jumped, but quickly regained his composure. He stared into the darkness, trying to discern what the shadow was.

It was a person. Tall, thin, with gangly limbs and features completely shrouded by darkness.

Ed was about to call out to it, but a sinking feeling in his gut made him think twice. He couldn’t tell if the figure was facing him. When a rather large stick caught his eye, Ed slowly started to approach it and the figure; at least he would have a weapon if the person had any ill-intent. He looked down as he was reaching for the stick, struggling to pick it up in his shaking hands. When he looked up, the figure was gone. Ed could feel his breath catch in his throat. Panic began flooding through his bloodstream once again and he took off, sprinting through the woods as fast as his tired legs and stinging lungs would let him.

With every impact of his feet on the forest floor, Ed’s head hammered in a dedicated synchronization. He could feel the numbing effects of the adrenaline wearing off. Still he pounded on, tearing through the woods towards a glimmer of moonlight on water, a break at the forest’s edge. As he drew closer, Ed could see that he was approaching the opposite shore of the same lake he had gone to earlier. He realized he had run much farther than he originally thought; the lake was nearly nine miles wide, and his home was barely more than a mile from the opposite edge of the lake. He was about to laugh at the absurdity of him, Edward Nashton, the kid who nearly collapsed after running a mile in gym _last week,_ unintentionally running almost ten miles when it hit him. It hit him like a freight train. The pain. All of the pain had been overpowered by the fear, the adrenaline, the weed...but that was all gone now, and it _hurt._ The gash on his forearm stung like a hundred fire ants were attacking him at once, the gnawing ache of his ribs and liver grew exponentially into a pressure so intense he thought he may burst open, his lungs burned in vehement protest with every tremulous breath he took, his neck protested with a sharp jolt of pain every time it moved a millimeter, and his head felt like someone had taken an icepick to it, leaving the tip in and hammering in further into his brain every few seconds. Ed shrieked as he fell down, the pain too excruciating to bear. 

He tumbled down the sloping shore of the lake, landing among the shallow waves in a heap. Ed wanted to cry or scream or curse or _something_...but he was so tired. All the pain he was in, physical and emotional, came crashing over him, drowning him in its all-consuming agony. Ed’s body shook fiercely, uncontrollably. He lay there in the shallow water, unable to feel or notice anything other than the anguish that was squeezing his soul from his body. The hope of escape he once had trickled out of his body through his mouth, mingling with the cold water and getting swept away into the depths of the lake. And soon the pain joined it, swept far away until there was none left. Until there was _nothing left._ Ed was not a person anymore. Ed was shell. Hollow, fragile, _broken._ And in that moment Ed decided that he would not be a shell. Ed would simply not be. Ed would cease to exist.

Ed hauled his hollow body up from the ball it had shriveled into. He waded into the water until it reached his chin, a vacant vessel preparing to set sail on its final expedition.

As he heaved in a final breath and began to dip below the surface of the frigid water, Ed was stopped by a strong, deep voice shattering the silence.

“Don’t do it.”

Ed rose back up above the water, just enough to see the shore, where he saw the lanky outline of the figure from earlier at the edge of the woods.

“I don’t know who you are or what you want, _sir,_ ” Ed called back in response, tone as threatening as he could muster in his empty state, “But I suggest you leave. I don’t _need_ your help and don’t _want_ your help.”

The figure didn’t respond, just stood there, unmoving. Ed couldn’t see his eyes but he could have sworn they were staring through the water and into the hollow pit that was the remains of his soul. Perhaps it would be good if he could see that there was nothing left to Ed, no hope to save him. Ed decided there was no point in waiting; this person was just trying to delay the inevitable, and Ed refused to give _anyone_ that satisfaction.

He closed his eyes and dipped below the surface, exhaling all the air in his lungs into the pitch black of the water before drawing as much of the water into his lungs as he could manage, forcing himself to stay face-down in the icy lake. His lungs felt like fire was coursing through them, a stark contrast to the immense cold enveloping the rest of his body. Ed’s eyes stayed closed, but he began to see white starbursts and his body started to grow too limp for him to move even if he wanted to. 

Suddenly, Ed felt strong hands drag him back up above the surface of the murky waves and haul him to the shallower water near the lake’s shore. Edward heaved desperately as he dropped to his knees, the water shallow enough that it still only reached his waist when sitting. He coughed up massive amounts of water, body shaking from both the cold and the effort. After several minutes he finally looked up to see who had ruined his only way to escape and gasped.

“ _You?_ ” Ed breathed.

“Me,” the tall figure said with a familiar grin. An _all too_ familiar grin.

“How are you–How did you– _How?_ ” he sputtered, small droplets of water continuing to spurt out of his mouth with every word.

“I’m here to protect you, Ed.” The figure was so calm, so confident as he loomed over Ed’s trembling frame. “We should really get you out of this water, though. Wouldn’t want you getting hypothermia now, would we?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Edward muttered through gritted teeth.

“Oh, come _on._ Don’t be so dramatic. Let’s go,” he reached out a long, lean arm, offering Ed his hand.

“No!” Ed shouted. “You never answered me! _How? How are you here?_ ”

“I told you, I’m here to protect you.”

“That’s not an answer!” he screamed in protest, slamming his fists down and sending a massive spray of water into the air. All the feelings from before began to flood back into Ed. The sadness. The fear. The pain. “Why?” he said, dropping his tone and choking back a sob of defeat, “Why now? Why not all the times I needed you before, after you _abandoned me?_ ”

“I didn’t abandon you, Eddie. You told me to leave. I was respecting your wishes.” Ed was about to open his mouth to respond, when the figure leaned in close with a smug smile on his face.  
“Cleary that didn’t work out.” His tone held a mischievous, taunting edge and his dark eyes held a menacing glint, clearly visible despite the only source of light being the faint glow of the moon, half hidden by a cloud. Ed looked into those deep brown eyes, studied the shark-like grin that stretched across the man’s face. All at once, Ed found himself snapped out of his trance.

“No. No! _No!_ ” he roared, standing up to glare down at the self-satisfied grin of the figure beside him, “I can’t believe I’m doing this—”

“Ed—”

“I must be out of my _damned_ mind! _Talking_ to you—”

“ _Ed_ —”

“ _Listening_ to you. What is _wrong_ with me?! How could I be so monumentally _moronic, asinine_ —”

“EDWARD!” the figure screeched, rising to his feet, “You need to get a hold of yourself.”

“ _You’re not real!_ ” Ed yelled so forcefully his still recovering lungs felt like they were going to collapse in on themselves. “You are a... _figment_ of my imagination. An imaginary friend I used as a coping mechanism when I was a _child._ You are nothing more than that. You need to go away. Leave me alone! You are _not real!_ How! How could I let you get to me like this!”

“Ed, I’m as real as you’ve made me. I can help you if you’ll let me,” his spectral duplicate offered with a gentle smile that would have seemed sincere, were it not for the malevolent gleam in his eyes.

“ _No,_ ” Ed snarled, “No. You don’t get to ruin this for me! This is the only way out–Do you understand that? This is my only opportunity to escape this Hell and I will not let you desecrate it!”

“You aren’t _thinking,_ Ed!” his doppelganger admonished, “Wow. You need me even more _desperately_ than I realized. Did your intelligence go out the window before or after the last of your self-respect?” he ridiculed with a cruel laugh, “There’s always a way out.”

“Where? How?” Ed interrogated, his frustration, shame, anger, and anxiety bubbling over, seeping through his words.

“You know,” the counterfeit responded with a sly grin.

“No I don’t! How could I possibly know?” he snapped.

“Because I know. And, let’s face it, you and I are essentially the same person.”

“Care to share, then?” Ed grumbled, but his hallucination merely stared back at him expectantly. “I’m supposed to guess? Fine.” He dropped back down onto his knees in the water. “Killing myself seems to be off the table, so what else is there?...Leave and go to college?” he added with a bitter, dismissive chuckle.

“Ring-a-ding-ding. We have a winner,” the phantom responded with an amused grin.

“You can’t possibly be serious.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not that simple!” he practically shrieked.

“Oh, and offing yourself is?”

“Yeah.” Ed deadpanned.

“I beg to differ...You don’t actually want to kill yourself, you know,” now it was his hallucination’s turn to get snappy.

“Uh, yeah. I do.”

“You want to deny your father the satisfaction of killing you. You’re giving up on any chance of a good life to spite _Harold. Nashton._ And if that isn’t the most _pathetic_ thing I’ve _ever_ heard, well, I don’t know what is,” the illusion stalked Edward, eyeing him like prey as he moved far too effortlessly through the knee-deep water, “You think you want to die? Go ahead...But when you regret your decision as you suffocate on your own spite, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“He...He’ll care,” Ed whispered.

“Who?” there was no emotion, no intrigue audible in the question. 

Ed paused for a moment, wondering if he was supposed to answer. When the inscrutable stare of his illusory harasser remained, he gave one. “Dad. He’ll care that I’m gone...The people at school, they’ll care. I think.”

“No they won’t!” The most merciless laugh Edward had ever heard gushed from his hallucination. “They don’t give a damn if you live or die now! Not Harold, not your peers or your teachers or your coworkers, _no one._ Why would that change after you died? What do you think they’ll do? Cry? Grieve? Sit awake in their beds at night, trying to solve the puzzle, decipher the enigma that _was_ Edward Nashton? Face it, you know that none of them will even shed a tear for you. No, Ed. You can get out. _We_ can get out. We just have to wait a little bit longer. I will help you deal with the beatings. I did it before, I can do it again. Come on, Ed,” all traces of mocking disappeared from his face, replaced by a sincere, kind smile as he offered Ed his hand once again, “Can you do that? Can _we_ do that?”

Ed searched his face for any sign of deception but found none. He stared into the face of his mirror image before giving a tentative smile and accepting his hand. They walked out of the lake, hand in hand, and smiled at each other as they reached the shore. Ed's phantom guardian grasped his face in his hands and stared into his eyes with a burning conviction.

“I promise you, Edward, things will be better. I will make you _whole._ ”

✥✵✥

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the main story! Yay! The next chapter is a short(ish) epilogue to lead into another fic I have planned. I hope you all enjoyed (considering how depressing this got, I'm not entirely convinced that's the right word, but I can't think of another one) this work!


	3. Epilogue

**Six Months Later**

✥✵✥

Harold sat quietly in his chair, beer in hand, watching the baseball game. He heard the front door close, quietly, almost as if someone doesn’t want him to know they’ve entered.

“Ed? Why are you sneaking around?” he called, not bothering to turn around. After all, who else could it be?

No response.

Harold twisted in his chair to peer around the side, “Ed? What are you–”

An overwhelming force crashed into his head. Hard, metal, unrelenting. Harold's vision went black as he tumbled backwards onto the floor. He could feel the shooting pain, hear the casually steady plod of footsteps approaching him, but his vision refused to clear. It was like a million tiny black dots were front of him, and try as he might to look around them or push through them, they remained, unyielding. He felt himself being hoisted up by the collar of his shirt abruptly and struggled to pull away. The strong hands that held him then flung him backwards into the edge of the coffee table. He tried to turn to crawl away but was stopped by a swift blow to his chin. Miraculously, this seemed to send the legion of black specks blocking his sight scattering away. He looked up to see a tall, gangly figure looming above him with, something-was that a metal baseball bat?-in its hand. The details of the figure’s face and clothes were too blurry to make out, but Harold felt a sinking sense of familiarity in his gut as he tried to force his eyes to focus.

“Edward?” he whimpered, the combination of pain, disbelief, and pure terror making it impossible to raise his voice above a whisper, “Is that you?”

The figure crouched down, coming uncomfortably close to Harold's face. Close enough for Harold to see its features clearly. Close enough for Harold to feel the warmth from puffs of its breath spreading across his skin, in time with the horror spreading through his blood as the gravity of his situation set in.

“Not exactly,” Ed replied, a malicious, predatory smile stretching across the length of his face.

He sat frozen in fear as his mind raced, trying to understand what on earth Ed meant. He was jolted back into reality as he felt his belt being unbuckled and pulled from its loops.

“Ed–Ed what are you doing?” he pleaded.

“Ed’s not here right now.”

“W-What?”

“Ed is not. Here. Right. Now,” the young man grunted as he yanked Harold's belt free from where it had snagged the last loop. He folded the belt in half and pulled the still-stiff leather taut. “I always knew you were an imbecile. Are you deaf now as well?”

Harold tried to process what his son had told him. He’s not Ed? He has to be Ed. It is Ed. Ed’s just trying to confuse him. Upset him. That’s what it is. It must be.

_Whoosh._

Harold's breath caught and his eyes bulged as he felt a the sting of leather smack into his thigh. He exhaled sharply, trying to ignore the pain and find some way to stop Ed. His son always did like to play games, and, in his desperation, Harold decided he needed to play along. He’d make sure Ed regretted this little game of his later. For now, he would take the bait. “Where is Ed?”

“What?” Ed paused, his hand and the belt raised over his head as he prepared to give another strike.

“You said Ed isn’t here. Where is he?”

“He’s...sleeping. I thought I’d take over, let him have a night off from the beatings. I was going to take it for him, but do you know what I realized? There is no reason for me to get a beating when I can give one instead.”

He gave his father a vigorous kick across the right side of his abdomen. Harold let out a choked cry as the unforgiving fabric came down hard on the same spot not thirty full seconds later. It was promptly followed by another forceful kick.

“Did you know that the liver is one of the most devastating places to get hit? Ed read a book on boxing's effects on the body that talked about it. Fascinating, really. But thanks to you, we didn’t need a book to know just how much it hurts. Experience really is a great teacher. See,” Ed gave a brief pause to deliver another brutal kick, seeming to delight in the shudder and weak groan it produced from Harold, “The liver doesn’t actually have any nerves, but,” another kick, “It is in a pouch that is _filled_ with nerves. Not only that, but your liver relays information to your autonomic nervous system,” three quick, successive kicks this time, “When you get hit in the liver, your body freaks out. Blood pressure drops. Heart rate decreases. So not only are you processing pain, but your nervous system panics and malfunctions-briefly. We didn't know all of that at the time, but it was quite uncomfortable anyway. Do you agree?” He punctuated his biology lesson with a sharp punch up and under the ribs.

Harold lay on his side, curled up into a ball, tears pouring down his face. He felt his hair being yanked back roughly, forcing him to meet his son’s eyes.

“I said: Do. You. _Agree?_ ” Ed hissed in the most menacing, virulent voice Harold had heard in his life. He nodded emphatically, unable to force any words from his throat. Ed smiled. Suddenly, his smile fell and he stood up. He began pacing around the room, muttering to himself, before disappearing briefly and returning with a pair of winter gloves on. 

“What...What are those? Why are you wearing gloves?” Harold coughed out.

Ed didn’t acknowledge him, instead grabbing the belt and sticking just the tip through the buckle. Just as quickly as he had stood up, he crouched back down to stare icily at his father.

“I’ve come to realize that Ed won’t like that I’ve hurt you. Why that sap feels a modicum of anything other than malice towards you is beyond me, but I don’t want to ruin our relationship so soon. I’m not entirely sure he’ll be ready to accept everything I have to offer right away, and hurting you will likely damage the trust I’ve managed to build with him thus far. So, tell me, can you keep a secret, _Dad?_ ” 

“...Yes?” came Harold's weak, quivering reply.

“Your tone does not instill confidence. To plan B, then.” Ed moved even closer to Harold, pulling the belt tip slightly further through the buckle. “Benjamin Franklin said ‘Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.’ The numbers are a little off here, but I think the sentiment still applies.” 

In a flash, Ed swung his father around and had the loop of the belt around his father’s neck, pulling the tip and pushing the buckle, tighter, tighter, tighter. Harold struggled, kicked and clawed and gasped for air, but was too weak to put up much of a fight. After a few minutes, Harold completely stopped fighting, body going slack, eyes bloodshot. Ed pulled the belt tighter and held it there for another minute, just to be safe. Finally, he released the belt and slid out from beneath Harold's limp body. He stood and stared down at the body, admiring his handiwork with a wicked grin for several minutes. 

“Well! That was _fun._ I’ll have to try it again sometime.”

✥✵✥

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaannnddd cue the Riddler's Theme.
> 
>  
> 
> And just like that, I've finished my first fanfiction! Thank you to everyone who read this; I hope you liked it! :)


End file.
